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WASHINGTON — Four U.S. military personnel assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, Libya, were
detained yesterday and then released after being held for hours by the country’s Interior Ministry,
U.S. officials said.

The four were believed to have been reviewing potential evacuation routes for diplomats when
they were detained, according to initial information received by officials in Washington. The place
they reportedly were detained is not far from the main road to the Tunisian border from Tripoli,
Libya’s capital.

After running into a problem at a checkpoint — many of which are run by local militias — they
were detained without harm and later moved to the Interior Ministry, said administration officials
who asked not to be identified because they were discussing internal reports.

The State Department confirmed the detention but provided no information on how it had
happened.

“We are seeking to further ascertain the facts and ensure their release,” Jen Psaki, the State
Department spokeswoman, said before the release. “We are in touch with Libyan officials on this
issue.”

Photographs of two U.S. passports and embassy identity cards were later disseminated on Twitter.
It was not known if the passports belonged to any of the four military personnel.

The buzzing sound of drones filled Tripoli’s sky for hours as rumors spread through the capital
that four Americans were missing. Drones are not usually heard in Tripoli, although the sound is
familiar in Benghazi.

The episode appears to have taken place in a town just southwest of the historic Roman ruins at
Sabratha and about an hour’s drive from Tripoli. The area is not known for anti-Western extremists
or other obvious threats. In part because it is a tourist area, the district around Sabratha skews
relatively liberal and friendly to Westerners.

Since the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens on
Sept. 11, 2012, employees of the embassy have operated with extraordinary caution.

But two years after the toppling of Moammar Gadhafi, security remains tenuous even in and around
Tripoli. Libya’s transitional government has not yet managed to assemble a credible national army
or police force.